Hipnaughtyic Realm

Most of you out there , must have debated, sometime or the other, whether hypnosis is real or not. And further, must have made a mental note "Ha !.. I cannot ever get hypnotized. Its for the weak ". I was of the same opinion, until I saw an amazing performance. Jason Mystic was the performer. Well, I was not any of his subjects, but there were some amazing curious interesting weird things in his performance which struck me.

It was supposed to be "comedy" hypnosis show, which meant, that nothing went overboard. Jason took care of that. But then, while we were enjoying our food before the show, he was already there, scanning us, and making a mental note of who would be his probable subjects. Once on stage, he made us perform a simple exercise. He told us to do something ,verbally, but then himself did some thing else,actually. For e.g he said "put your fist to your cheek". And then he would actually put it to his chin. And we , who were following him, did the same. But there were some, who did put their fist to their cheek. And those were the guys he was looking out for. He wanted those subjects who would respond to his vocal commands.

I wouldn't mention the usual stuff that these hypnotists do, but I found 2-3 things particularly interesting. He had these two people, a guy and a girl, under deep trance. How he did that, is a different question altogether, and equally intriguing, but he managed to get his bunch of subjects in various "zones" of hypnotic control. Which essentially meant, that these subjects were alive and responsive, aware of us, the audience too, but they would listen and do only what Jason said. It was like having the control from your own mind shut off momentarily, and let it be controlled by something else.

He told the guy, that he was , from now on, an interpreter of Martian languages. And he told the girl, that she could speak only Martian. Both nodded to what he said, and assumed the roles he gave them. Jason asked the guy "So, you know Martian, eh? How long have you known Martian?".The guy replies to Jason, in English "For 18 years now. I can speak in 52 different dialects of Martian". This was amazing. Jason said he had never heard such an answer before. Then he told the guy to ask the girl where she was from . The guy spoke to the girl in some incomprehensible language, which was his version of Martian. The girl replied in an equally "woo maan fchiow juaa fooo teenii krree" language, which was her own version of Martian. Hearing back the reply, the guy told Jason that the girl said she is from a small town on Mars !! This continued for some time.At one point, the guy complained that the girl is speaking a dialect he can't understand, but for most of their conversation, the guy was speaking Martian, the girl was replying Martian, and the guy was translating that back to English! By Martian, I mean incomprehensible ,deep, gurgling like sounds.

How was this possible ?. I mean, prior to being told that they can understand Martian, these people had not even heard what they spoke. They had no idea about Martian, or the questions they would be asked.But still the guy said he has been doing this for 18 years and knows 52 dialects?This was something created by his own mind, in response to what Jason said. It was like, if he knew Martian, this is how he would want the reality to be. 18 years of experience and 52 dialects!

Secondly, the Martian that they both supposedly spoke seemed to be different dialects. But they both carried on perfectly sane conversation. By this, I mean that he used to translate back a logically correct answer to the question he had asked in Martian, and was replied to in Martian. I mean, a question about a living place, would get back a name of a place as an answer, and not the name of a person etc. How was this possible? Obviously, Jason was the link. When he used to tell the guy to ask the girl "ask her where does she come from", this used to be English. And must have been heard by both the girl and the boy, subconsciously. I say subconsciously, because, at the current conscious level, they were speaking Martian, and could not have understood it( except of course for the boy, who being a interpreter,knew English as well). But once they subconsciously understood the question, whatever the girl replied back in Martian, he would assume or feel he understood it, and give back a logically correct answer which was actually his own making. There is no way he could have actually understood what the girl spoke

The reason for this example, is because I want to point out the amazing mind,which indeed is conscious at so many levels at the same time. And it used the information from another level of consciousness , for processing the information at the current level of consciousness. And even more surprising is that this exchange of information happened seamlessly, and effortlessly and logically.

One more interesting example was where he asked a bunch of guys under hypnotic trance to assume that they were kids about to visit a "pet zoo", a zoo where they can touch animals. He said that we, the audience, were the animals. And he let them free for some time amongst us to go and touch us. These bunch of "kids", came and touched us on the head, were excited, called each other, made sounds of glee, and went back to some other "animal". This went on for some time, before Jason called them back. He then asked each one of them , to name their favorite animal and point to it. One of the guys pointed to a guy on our table, and said he liked that "rhinoceros". One more pointed out to someone else saying he liked that "billy goat". I was astonished. The reason is, that the faces of these pointed people, resembled , in an animation sense, the animals that they were told to be!

I mean the billy goat guy, had a long face, had slightly pointed ears, and had slightly the low hanging goat beard! If you had asked a non hypnotised guy to name an animal that resembled that guy, he would have probably come up with the same answer. Or if you had told someone to draw an animal caricature for that billy goat person, he would have drawn the face of billy goat !The rhinoceros guy had the haircut, face and eyes which would have made him an animated rhinoceros as well. There was one more, who was told to be a "teddy bear". He had a round face, and fluffy hair, which again would have made him look like one in an animated version of himself.

Again, the mind used the information we have of animations and real animals, subconsciously, to make a new image of the people they were actually seeing, to perceive them as animals that they liked. This is extraordinary . This is the same way the mind would use exactly the same information I mentioned ,to draw an animal caricature of someone. Again a seamless exchange of information, even when the purpose changed.

This reiterates, that indeed, what we have been hearing that the mind is capable of much more than we ever put it to use to, is very very true. We hardly use all the information our mind is capable of processing. We are trying hard to push the boundaries of neuro stimulation to understand what goes on in there. This has so longed intrigued us,that we can see the desire to understand our mind, and an effort to fathom it,master it, in all facets of our life. Including movies. For Matrix lovers, this translates into what Morpheus told Neo - "Don't think you can, know you can " ! Advertisements use our subconscious mind all the time. It might not be surprising to find, once we are voluntarily able to access our subconscious mind, that it is filled with one liners from all the advertisements. Good leaders and orators have been doing what the hypnotists do for a long long time. Brainwashing, is scientific after all. Hitler, has been said to have this effect on millions of people when he spoke. Religious leaders across the world, use this to their advantage. Religion, is so superficial, that the fact that it might require a subconscious mind to accept it, is indeed disheartening. And it would be even more disheartening , if we are able to explain "love" when we start understanding the mind.It would be extremely disappointing, to know ,that love was after all, a type of hypnosis.Have you ever thought why you know, when you meet the right person, that he or she is the right person? Because the Martian in you, is communicating with the Martian in the other, and yelling that "its me" .

I am amazed with the mind. I hope someday, the human mind, can fathom itself. After the show, Jason wanted to thank the participants. As a gesture of appreciation, for their willingness to participate, he told them, when they were still under his trance, that henceforth , they would be able to read and understand 20 % faster than they currently do.And then he took them out of hypnotic hold. He then told, that in fact, contrary to what we might think that these people are weak, because they could go under his hypnotic control so easily, he said that these people were in fact better at concentration, because they could go into hypnosis, only because they could shut out everything else except his voice commands. If this is true, I would want to get that gift as well. After all, as they say, its all in the mind.

Nachiket Mehta

18th July 09